My computer appears to have two hard-drives!?

Question

One has all my programmes etc on. The othe is empty. How can I delete the empty one an be left with jut one drive? My laptop is an "acer"

Answer 1

You have 2 partitions , not 2 hard drives. Search google for partition if you want to know how to delete, modify it

Answer 2

It's definitely 2 Partitions - the seemingly 'Empty' one, may NOT be empty, it may well contain Recovery Details for use in the event that your Laptop suffers problems.

Normally when booting up, the screen will briefly display a message advising you that you can pres a Function key (F6,F8 etc.) to carry out certain tasks - usually if you press F11 it will boot you into a recovery program that takes all the details from the Recovery Partition to re-build your Laptop.

So if your laptop is working fine - leave the partition as it is, it's there as a safety net should it all go belly up!

Within the documentation that came with the Laptop, should be details on how to use the recovery partition & guidance on creating rescue discs (Which I strongly recommend you do) - it's easy and will usually only take 2 DVD's or about 9 CDR's.

Hope That Helps!

R.

Answer 3

You have two partitions on a single drive.
If you go into cmos you will also find under boot sequence a third
partition this is a backup of your system.
which is used for original factory settings.
To make your system read one drive only you have to delete the second part-ion and redo a primary partition BUT if you don't know what your doing you will end up with a useless piece of plastic.
so either get someone to do it for you or take it to a computer shop to have this done explaining the two partitions on the one drive.
you have to first fdisk the partition,format as a large drive, and reinstall operating system
Acer have a backup facility on the machine back everything to CD
as the only way you'll get your drivers back is from the web site
www.acer.com hope this helps

Answer 4

You can use partition magic (a software) to manage you partitions.

It is actually useful to have a second drive. You can use that for all your documents, photos, music etc. So if the system gets corrupter you can format (delete) everything in the drive with all the programs and re-install everything correctly, without losing any information. A lot of laptops are partitioned to 2 drives just for that reason.

Answer 5

Assuming you have a D; drive and it is not the CDrom. Acer is known for partition in 2 parts, they might leave a 4 to 10 gig on the C drive then a larger D drive, thinking you will only have the operating system on the C drive and install everything on the D Drive, It could keep your computer quicker doing it that way but thats up for a discussion in its self. If you decide to reload from your disk, remember to back up your data, while reloading, you will have a option to remove drives then make one large drive

Answer 6

Oh boy, you really must be a beginner!

Your hard disc is, usually, partitioned to allow you to save your vital files on the additional drive thus created so that in the event you need to format your primary drive due to infection etc, you can do that without affecting the data stored on the secondary drive!

Usually, one would maintain a dual boot computer like with Windows 98 on the secondary drive, so that you could use the secondary OS to help you format and reinstall the primary OS like Windows XP on the primary drive with the least loss of data etc.; since the secondary OS is a fail-safe that you maintain for emergencies like this.

Actually, other than the Primary OS, you shouldn't be keeping anything else on the primary drive which is the target for all viruses and worms.

You seem to be wanting to commit suicide by wanting to remove the partition and leave yourself wide open!

I'd be uninstalling all other Programs, other than the OS from the Primary drive, and reinstalling on the secondary drive, if I were you. Including my modem driver drivers/dialers/router configurations etc. Because, when the OS is hit by a virus or worm, I'd be safely able to uninstall by formatting the drive and reinstalling over that, without losing anything but the most recent work that would've brought in the virus there anyway.

Hope this helps you from committing the act of suicide you were about to do in ignorance.

All the best.

Cheers

Answer 7

I have an acer laptop too. A hard drive is a physical component inside the machine, like the CD drive or the wireless network transmitter - you can't delete it.
You just have to store some data on one drive and some on the other, personally I use c:/ for programs and games and d:/ for documents, music and pictures.

Answer 8

If you have two hard drives then just remove the spare (judging by your question take it to a PC repair shop).

But this is very unlikely and you are more than likely to have a partition. As others have said use partition magic or if you don't mind starting from scratch format your machine and create one partition.

Answer 9

It's handy to have two partitions. Provided the one called "Drive D" is empty, you can combine them using a partition management program. Partition Magic from Symantec is good, but it costs about £38. There's a free one at partitionlogic.co.uk, but I don't know if it's any good.

Answer 10

Dude I don't know what you mean, but I can guess: you use Windows and you have C, D and you only want C? If so, these are partitions, logical divisions of a physical disk in your computer. And if you don't know what you are doing I suggest you leave these things alone if you do not want to loose everything you have there. Also, I suggest you let the operating system alone on C and all your stuff on D. How about it?